New Brunswick has produced an Environmental Impact Assessment on the Petitcodiac River causeway at Moncton, near the head of the Bay of Fundy, rekindling a long-standing dispute between environmentalists and commercial fishermen.
The environmental community, led by the Riverkeepers, wants the causeway gate opened, which they maintain will clean the river. Fishermen maintain that the resulting silt influx will destroy thriving lobster and scallop fisheries downstream.
The assessment considered four options: replacing the fishway; opening the gates during peak migration; opening the gates permanently; and replacing the causeway with a partial bridge.
The assessment states that the status quo, i.e., leaving the gate closed, was considered and dismissed as “not meeting project objectives.”
Jim Wood, the former chairman and current spokesman for the Alma, New Brunswick, Fishermen’s Association, considers this position “cavalier.”
“For fish passage to be re-established on the Petitcodiac River for nine important species, the assessment concludes, the Status Quo and Project Option 1 (replacing the fishway) and Project Option 2 (gates open during peak migration) will not achieve this. Only Project Option 3 (gates open permanently) and Project Option 4 (replace the causeway with a partial bridge) with modifications do.”
Opening the gates permanently “would be the least costly to build and operate, but would not have the enhanced benefits” of replacing the existing causeway with a partial bridge.
“From a full cost accounting perspective, the assessment states, “notwithstanding regulatory considerations, it would appear that the costs of implementing Project Options, in effect, would be largely nullified, through the benefits that would be accrued…
Wood, who holds lobster and scallop licenses and fishes out Alma, notes that the assessment indicates that there would be no negative impact on the fisheries below the causeway. “First they say this, and then they say but even if there is, you can go fish somewhere else in the Bay of Fundy,” he said. “Well, for us it’s just not that simple. For one thing we dont fish where there are no fish.
He adds that the assessment says that sediment removed from the river “will be transported and held in suspension, and that there’s not be any problem. We’re saying, “Look, that’s a pretty cavalier attitude. We believe that there’s an absolute correlation between the fact that the gate is closed and the growth of the lobster and scallop fisheries. The issue of siltation has not been properly addressed – we’re told that all we have is anecdotal evidence that’s not considered worthwhile; clearly their minds were made up. Well, this is a poor area, and we’re up against a strong, well-funded lobby.”
Fishermen “have had input at various stages, but that certainly hasn’t been reflected in finished document,” Wood said. “I’d also like to know where the DFO [the Canadian federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans] is on this. The have a mandate to protect marine species, and that’s supposed to include lobsters and scallops.”
Repeated calls to provincial spokesperson Sherry Sparks were not returned.